


Finders Keepers

by leaper182



Series: Forged [15]
Category: The Dresden Files - All Media Types
Genre: Alternate Universe - Canon Divergence, Gen, M/M, Minor spoilers from the TV series and the books
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2008-10-02
Updated: 2008-10-02
Packaged: 2018-04-26 11:07:37
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 16,227
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/5002411
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/leaper182/pseuds/leaper182
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Complications arise when Harry and Murphy go back to Undertown to tie up a loose end.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Finders Keepers

**Author's Note:**

> To gehayi, beachkid, and shiplizard, the three who continue to tolerate my insanity and point out when something's just not right. Thank you!
> 
> Originally posted on October 2, 2008.

When I made the decision that I wanted to be a wizard, that I wanted to do this magic thing for the rest of my life, I was nearly sixteen at the time.

Now, usually, when people discover that they can do magic, they think about all the fame and fortune they'll get, if they use their talents just right. But at fifteen, facing down the ghost who had become my teacher and my first unrequited love all rolled up in one, I knew that I wanted to use magic to help people. Sure, I would probably get laughed at and ridiculed, but magic was something very beautiful, very special. The things you can do with it are nothing short of breathtaking.

Unfortunately, magic also included running around in the sewers and trying not to think about what I just stepped in.

"I could've handled this, Murph," I muttered, holding up my pentacle amulet. The soft blue light illuminated the dark, eerily empty tunnel as I gently poured more will into it.

"Yeah, we all know how well you did against this thing last time," Murphy replied, shining her flashlight around once. It made a fizzing sound, and then the light winked out. With a sigh, she reached into her coat and took out a chemical light, breaking it in half and then dropping it on the ground before readying her gun again. With the loss of her flashlight, the shadows grew longer, crept along the curves of the walls, and sent a chill down my spine.

"I was surprised last time," I growled, trying not to think about it. I'd been on the trail of a woman who'd been snatched by a large snake, only I hadn't known it at the time. The only thing I'd known for sure was that a blind woman had heard a scream while she was riding the subway, and she was sure that someone was in trouble.

I wouldn't have taken the case, but she had been able to replicate the scream almost pitch perfect for me.

To make a long story short, I got blindsided when I'd found where the woman had possibly disappeared from, and had found myself dumped off somewhere.

"Aren't you usually surprised by whatever supernatural creature decides to confront you?" Bob asked mildly, glancing around at the dank, curved walls and continuing forward ahead of us. The light of my amulet fell on the back of his jacket, the shadows somehow emphasizing his long legs...

I jerked my focus back to the here and now. It was a bad time to be caught daydreaming, especially since the sound of the snake tunneling through this section of Undertown started again, somewhere off to our left.

"I know better now," I growled, not liking the reminder.

Before you ask, no, I didn't introduce Bob and Murphy to each other. Apparently, while I had been unconscious for the five days I'd been trapped in Undertown, Bob had taken it upon himself to meet Murphy. From the way that Murphy summoned Bob from his skull after we'd broken away from Kirmani and the SWAT team she'd brought along to the party, they were already used to each other's presence.

"Good to know," Murphy grunted, squinting at Bob and then past him. The way both of them moved, him ahead of her, it felt like I was the third wheel, and that doesn't usually happen to me. "Bob?"

"Nothing yet, milady," he replied without turning around to look at us. "The creature seems to be some distance off."

The familiarity between them was starting to get on my nerves. "Okay, Bob, perhaps you can clear up something for me," I said, using my irritation to make my amulet glow brighter. Now, instead of seeing Bob's hair and a few inches ahead of him, I could see more of the damp, moss-covered walls.

"Yes, Harry?" Bob said, sounding distracted.

"You're supposed to be a secret." Considering what I _really_ wanted to say, that was me being the soul of tact. "Remember the last time I was kidnapped?"

Murphy frowned, the wizardlight making her look almost angelic. "The words in the air were you?" she asked Bob.

Bob nodded, and then turned to arch an unimpressed eyebrow at me. "You seem to get kidnapped with alarming frequency. Enlisting Lieutenant Murphy's aid was as much to keep me sane as it was about discovering your whereabouts."

I saw Murphy smile, and I clamped down on my anger as best I could. "You were supposed to be a _secret_ , Bob."

"Harry, we've spoken on this subject before," Bob said mysteriously, turning back to the tunnel ahead of him. "And you know my views. Do you really wish to continue this discussion now?"

I gritted my teeth. Murphy shot me a curious look, but I shook my head at her. She might not have known what Bob was talking about, but I knew. He'd told me once that he went through Hell every time I left the house and he wasn't sure if I'd be home that night. He might not have returned my feelings, but he _did_ care whether or not I got my face eaten by something big and scary. Apparently, Bob's way of striking back against that fear was to get Murphy involved.

The trouble is, Murphy's curious. You don't get to be as good a cop as she is and not get curious when something unusual comes up. And this conversation would certainly qualify to her.

Bob paused and turned to look at me again. The wizardlight caught his eyes in just the right way, because the way he was looking at me, they were almost blazing blue-green light. "Am I to assume that by your silence," he asked, "that the discussion is tabled?"

I glared at him. "Keep walking. And keep an ear out for that snake."

Bob's lips curved into a very small smile, and he walked forward, lengthening his stride until he was almost out of the range of the amulet's light.

"All right, fine," I grumbled. "The two of you met. How did you guys find me?"

Bob didn't bother turning around. "Detective work."

Murphy snorted, pausing to check down one broken-walled corridor. I'm sure once upon a time, these corridors were rectangular in shape, but from what I could tell, something large enough and powerful enough to break the walls had been moving through these tunnels almost constantly, and from what I remembered last time of the serpent I saw when Bob, Murph, and I were getting out of here, I was fairly sure who the culprit was.

"As to an actual answer to your question," Bob said, glancing back at me, "remember when I told you you might have to change your wards again?"

I stopped walking. "You _told_ her about the ward?" I demanded. "That thing took us two _weeks_ to put together."

"It only took that long because you weren't listening to me about how to implement the shield against spirits," Bob muttered. "Lieutenant Murphy discovered your abandoned car, as I've told you before. I couldn't very well have been able to accompany her to the crime scene without her undoing them."

"Great," I muttered, "now I've got to change the wards again."

Murphy glanced up at me with a frown. "Why do you need to do that? It's not like I'm going to sneak into your place and borrow Bob while you're out."

She'd been trying to reassure me, but it had only reminded me of when I'd been seeing Tara, and what had happened after she'd stolen Bob's skull from me in the middle of the night. "Bob was already stolen from me once," I admitted. "I'd rather not go through that again."

"Harry." I looked down to see Murphy, her gun still at the ready, but looking up at me again.

"Yeah?" I asked, trying to sound nonchalant.

"I wouldn't do that to you," she said simply. We'd never soulgazed before, but I knew she was telling me the truth. You don't get to be friends as long as we have without knowing each other.

"You may not wish to, Lieutenant," Bob spoke up, surprising the two of us. I glanced at him, but he was still walking ahead of us. "However, he _is_ concerned, and rightly so, that you might be coerced into revealing the wards to other elements who could wish to do him harm."  
  
"I know a thing or two about keeping my mouth shut," Murph said stiffly.  
  
"I was not implying that you would reveal Harry's secrets of your own volition," Bob said soothingly. "But surely, you've encountered circumstances where you haven't been entirely in control of your faculties?" He paused to look over his shoulder at Murphy, one eyebrow raised.  
  
Murphy frowned at him. "What're you talking about?"  
  
If ever something needed a cue to stop the conversation, that was it.  
  
Down the corridor we'd been following, there was a flash of red light, followed by a sudden hum that was too low to be heard.

"What the bloody hell...?" Bob murmured, looking down the corridor.

Murphy reached for her radio, but when she turned it on, it let out a loud squeal before bursting into bad static. Wincing, she glared at me. I shrugged at her to show her it wasn't intentional, and readied my staff. Concentrating on my amulet to keep the light going, I moved forward toward the hum.

At any other time, a hum right in the middle of a sewer would be downright creepy, but what was creepy about this was that it felt _familiar_ to me, as familiar as my own magic. And since I wasn't responsible for the hum, that made me more alert.

"Harry, no!" Bob shouted behind me.

I stopped, the words chillingly familiar. At first I thought I might've been having a case of deja vu, and when I looked back at him, I saw his wide, blue-green eyes, and I could see him speaking, but I wasn't hearing anything past the hum.

As much as everything was getting weird and confusing, I turned around and kept going. There was a snake in the darkness, and if that light wasn't as scary as I suspected it might be, it would be a good place to take a breather. The hum must've been a generator from somewhere.

Still operating after who-knows-how-long it's been down here. Yeah.

I love my life.

I almost didn't need my light. The room was a cross between an antechamber and a den, with bones and scraps of bloodstained cloth strewn on the floor, while the walls were drier than most of the tunnels that we'd been through already in the past couple of hours. Then I noticed two things. First, the source of the light came from a long sword being held by someone wearing concealing black robes, the hood completely hiding their face. The second was the really huge snake, which was about as big around as your typical SUV, and more capable of ripping off a random limb.

The sword flashed and danced as the figure swung on the snake, and the snake hissed and lashed out in reply, catching the sword in its fangs and letting out a hiss that sounded like Mister with a microphone.

Murphy glanced around the room, took in the figure and the snake, and fired on the snake. It reared back with a roar loud enough to make my ears ring, and the thing charged at me and Murphy.

We both dodged out of the way, each of us running for opposite sides of the room. I'd love to say it was planned, but I just ran like hell away from anything that could trip me up. When I heard Murphy shooting at it again, I raised my staff and shouted, "Fuego!"

A lance of flame flew at the snake, hitting its midsection. Its coils rasped together as it flinched, and with another roar, it lunged at me.

I zigged when I should've zagged, and the back of my head smacked against the wall that was suddenly behind me. Stars took over at that point, but through the haze, I could see the black-robed figure scuttling back from the monster with a kind of feral grace. Whoever it was in the concealing hood looked first at where Murphy was, then back to me. More gunshots rang out, followed by the serpent roaring in pain.

"Help us out!" I tried to scream, but I managed "huh" before the brilliant sunlight of the hooded figure's sword dazzled my vision.

"No!" Bob shouted, his voice ringing in my ears despite everything. "Harry!"

 _I need you safe,_ I suddenly thought to myself. Before I could be surprised by what I'd just thought, I felt a hand against my forehead. Then the back of my head slammed against the wall. And then everything went black.

After about a year went by, I woke up with a splitting headache to the melodious sound of gunfire, and someone dragging me by the arm. I opened my eyes to see that I wasn't in the den-like antechamber anymore, but a side tunnel that had the familiar curved walls of something too huge tunneling through. I looked up to see Kirmani staring down at me, barely seeing me in the darkness, blinding after the light of the room where all the fireworks were happening now.

"Glad you finally decided to join the party," Kirmani grunted. "Do you know who you are?"

I tried to roll my eyes, but after my brain objected violently at the idea, I sagged back on the floor and narrowed my eyes at him. Waking up on a hard floor, confronted with Sid Kirmani, is not the best start to any day, and this wasn't the first time I'd woken up today. It was kind of sad that I was getting used to this kind of thing. "Shouldn't you be in there helping out?" I asked snidely.

"Ten guys in full SWAT gear and Murphy? The snake's as good as toast." He snorted. "Murphy'd have my ass in a sling if I ditched you here, anyways. How many fingers?" It took a moment for my eyes to adjust, but I could see him holding up two fingers.

"Really, Kirmani," I said, "I know you're a ray of sunshine, but asking a guy to see after a sudden light change _and_ a possible concussion is a bit much, don't you think?" I held up two of my own.

Kirmani snorted. "Want I should get my penlight, shine it in your eyes?" he asked with a nasty smile. "I'm sure I could make it real bright, so you can see it and all."

I glared at him, but when I tried to get up, my head suddenly felt like a balloon that was trying to float away, and one of Kirmani's hands was pushing me down on the incredibly dirty, vaguely slimy floor.

"Stay down, Dresden," he ordered. "As much as I'd love to not have to deal with you ever again, you getting upright now would just cause more headaches for the rest of us."

I heard a burst of gunfire, and flinched. "Is it me, or are they getting closer?"

Kirmani's dark eyes narrowed, looking almost ferret-like in the dimness, and he glanced down the hallway, presumably the way we'd come from, and then leaned back against a wall. "Stay down," he ordered me again, like I was going to suddenly jump up and start doing the Charleston. He took out his gun and held it aimed down at the floor. "Lieutenant?" he called, causing the chasm in my head to split wider.

There was a long silence before three more shots rang out, and then, "I'm here."

Kirmani nodded, and then he said, "Dresden's awake."

"Good." This time, Murphy's voice was closer, and when I tried to look at the doorway, I could see her short, slender frame silhouette. "Start taking the wounded up topside, and radio in that we're going to need a stretcher."

"I can get up," I protested.

Murphy snorted. "Did he try to get up?" she asked her partner.

Kirmani snorted. "Tried to. I'll tell 'em. We lose any?"

I saw silhouetted curls bounce as she shook her head. "Go."

"Going," Kirmani said, and pretty soon, I was left along with Murphy.

"What the hell happened?" I demanded. "I thought I said we were going to take care of the snake."

" _You_ said that, but _I_ said that if the SWAT came across it, they'd take care of it, and they did," Murphy replied. She walked over to me and knelt down, her dark form looking me over. "You took a pretty good bump to the head there."

"That was part of the 'what happened' question," I grumbled.

"The Man in Black, whoever he was, apparently thought that you needed to sit this one out," she said. "I... I was busy shooting the snake, but it was like the guy wasn't even human. He was halfway across the room faster than I've seen anyone move, and then he--"

"Bashed my head against the wall, yeah," I grunted. "I knew that. Tell me what happened afterward."

"Well, he looked like he was taking something from you, and then he ran down one of the tunnels. I tried to chase him, but the snake got in the way. Without you throwing the pyrotechnics around, the radio worked long enough for me to radio our position, and SWAT took care of the rest." She looked me over again, and I could see her taking off her jacket.

"Why, Lieutenant," I tried blearily, "I never knew you cared."

"Oh, shut up," she said. She folded the jacket as best she could, and then lifted my head enough so that she could slide it underneath. Grimacing a little from the contact, the makeshift pillow felt blissfully wonderful against my aching head. "You need a keeper, I swear--"

After a moment of abrupt silence, I looked up at her. "Murph?"

"Harry, weren't you carrying a bag earlier?" she asked slowly, as if she already knew the answer.

It took me a minute, which is an indicator of just how bad my bell had been rung, but I said, "Yeah. I use it to carry Bob's skull in when I take him out of the house. Why?"

"I think I know what our man in black was after."

My eyes widened, and then I reached up as best I could and touched my shoulders, first my right, then my left. When I felt my hoodie instead of the drawstring cord, my heart started pounding in time with my head.

"Stars and stones," I breathed. "He took Bob."

"Harry," Murphy said firmly, "it's going to be okay. We'll figure out who did this--"

"Murph, he took _Bob_ ," I said, because clearly, she didn't get just how devastating this was. Not only did whoever it was take Bob, they were obviously strong enough to take on our late sewer snake on their _own_. What kind of additional power would Bob's knowledge be to this person? Was it even a person under that cowl? Their reflexes had been inhumanly fast.

What kind of thing had Bob?

"I know he did, Harry," she snapped. "But you're in no condition to go after him. So, lay down, stay there, and wait until a doctor can make sure you're not concussed."

I didn't want to lay down. The love of my life just got kidnapped because some _thing_ that had slammed me against a wall and made off with his skull. Not only that, but if they knew to go for the bag I was carrying, that could mean any number of things. Maybe Mr. Black knew who I was, and figured anything they could take from me might be worth something, and they just happened to hit the jackpot today. Maybe they knew who Bob was, and they were waiting for this opportunity. Hell, they could've been trying to control the snake, but it got out from under their control--

"Harry," Murphy snapped. "You're starting to breathe too fast. Concentrate on the sound of my voice."

Murphy's voice jarred me out of my spiraling thoughts, and after breathing in and out according to her slow, steady eight-count, I was feeling a little calmer, if not necessarily all that great. My head was still pounding, but my heartbeat had slowed a bit, and the rest of my body was compiling a list of complaints for my brain to process.

When the stretcher came, it was a relief not to have to backtrack all the way back to the manhole where we'd started from. After a hospital visit where the doctors didn't appreciate the fact that the police were bringing in a man who wasn't concussed when they stated he was, I was released after a few hours. Murphy took me home in the unmarked she usually drove around.

"Murphy, I need to go back," I protested as she marched me inside my house and locked the door behind her. How she managed it is still a mystery to me, considering I've got a foot on her, and at least a hundred pounds, if not more. Still, I found myself deposited on my couch in what counted as my living room, and I watched Murphy investigate the contents of my refrigerator gravely.

"Not right now, you aren't," she said firmly. "I don't know what you did to the machines at the hospital, but you're not going anywhere until I'm convinced you aren't brain-damaged." She paused for a second before she closed the fridge door and smiled. "Of course, I always thought you were brain-damaged, so it'll take quite a bit of convincing."

"You're stepping on my lines," I groused. I shifted around on the couch, and debated whether or not I wanted to risk getting up. "Besides, I can't fool machines. I just make them foul up."

Murphy snorted. "Sure, Harry." She filled a glass with ice cubes from my freezer, filled it with water, and brought it over to my coffee table, setting the glass down on the pockmarked surface. "You need rest, and you're not going to get that in the sewers."

"What about the lab?" I asked, looking up at her nose. A week ago, I wouldn't have asked the question, because a week ago, she wasn't aware that I _had_ a lab. After she had teamed up with Bob, though, she'd found out about it. I hadn't had a chance to talk with her about anything that she might have seen or touched in there, but from the look on her face as she looked at me, she seemed to know that working in the lab wasn't going to involve me being horizontal anytime soon.

She snorted. "I say no work, and you suggest the lab. No, Harry. I'll say it in Pig Latin if I need to."

"Not Pig Latin, Murph," I said, widening my eyes. "My heart couldn't stand it."

"And your head couldn't stand trying to track down Bob in the sewers," she replied. "Besides, how would you even begin to start tracking down his skull?"

I tried to scowl at her, but settled for narrowing my eyes and brooding in her general direction. I was trying to look like I knew what I was doing, but from the way she was looking at me, I could see it wasn't working. "I'll think of something."

Murphy snorted. "Figures. You're too pig-headed to take care of yourself."

"Yeah, and the sky is blue," I said. "What's your point?"

"I'm staying here until I'm sure you're not going to slip in the bathtub and break your neck." She pushed me down gently until I was curled up on the couch. "Got any spare sheets?"

"Why, Murph," I half-mumbled, "I didn't know you were such a fox."

She rolled her eyes. "I'll take that as a no. Stay here. I'll be right back."

I debated getting up and trying to sneak out, but then I remembered that Murphy knows aikido, so that was out. I eyed the glass of water on the coffee table, just out of reach, but my arm weighed a hundred pounds, so _that_ was out.

I laid my head on the couch, and a minute later, I felt a pillow being slid under it, followed by Murphy tucking a blanket around me.

After a few seconds, I was out too.

True to her word, Murphy was there when I woke up a few hours later. I was a bit surprised to find it dark outside, but it was October in Chicago, so I only had my head injury to blame for being surprised. Murph checked to make sure my brain wasn't turning to Swiss cheese, and then after a quick run to the Golden Dragon for carry-out, I was eating moo goo gai pan at my kitchen table and brooding.

"How does it work?"

I looked up, surprised that Murphy had spoken. We hadn't exchanged much in the way of conversation since I'd woken up.

I finished my bite and raised my eyebrows at her. "What?"

"The way you track things," she said. "How does it work?"

I shrugged. "Simple tracking spell. Get a little bit of somebody -- hair, blood, something they own or that they've used -- mix it up with some other stuff, add crystal, and boom. Tracking spell." I looked at her curiously. "Why?"

"Well, if that's how it works, how are you going to find Bob?" she asked. "It's not like he has any hair or blood or whatever, since he doesn't have a body, and it's not like he owns anything, unless you count the skull, and that's more like an anchor anyway." She shrugged, taking a dainty sip of Diet Coke. "So, how are you going to find him?"

I frowned, and tried to ignore the headache that started when I did that. "How much did you learn about Bob when you two were trying to find me?" I asked. I was fairly sure that Bob wouldn't have told her _all_ of his deepest, darkest secrets, but I was a bit surprised by how much she seemed to know about him.

"Not too much," she admitted. "He's a ghost bound to his skull. He did something pretty bad in order to get stuck there, but I don't know what. And part of his punishment is that he's your servant." She eyed me steadily.

"I've known him since I was eleven, and he's saved my life more than once," I said. "He's not a servant."

"But he's still stuck in his skull, isn't he? He can't stop somebody from discovering your secret lab unless he tries to distract them from it, and he can't make anyone stay away from somewhere, can he?" she asked, an eyebrow rising.

"No, he can't," I said steadily, "but if I figure out a way to free him from being bound to his skull, then he wouldn't be anyone's servant anymore."

Murphy narrowed her eyes at me. "But if you do that, wouldn't that mean his spirit's free to go to the other side, or whatever?"

I set my teeth against each other firmly. "It's possible. No one's ever freed him from the curse."

She nodded slowly, taking another pull from her soda. "What's his story?"

I shook my head. "It's not my story to tell. He's the one cursed to his skull, and it was still bothering him when I asked about it."

She frowned, but nodded again. "Okay, but how would whoever that was know to take Bob's skull from you? I mean, he disappeared down the hallway when the fight broke out."

I wanted to smack myself. "If anybody who knows me from..." I stopped myself before I mentioned the High Council. She stared at me expectantly, and I lamely said, "my line of work, they could know about Bob, and want to take over as his guardian."

She raised an eyebrow at me, telling me without a word that she would get the story from me sooner or later, but she wasn't going to demand answers now. "Can anyone just steal him and say he's theirs, according to this group of yours?"

I shook my head. "I don't actually know. I had to fight to be made Bob's guardian after my uncle died." At her surprised frown, I said, "Justin was Bob's guardian before I was, and Bob's skull isn't the kind of thing that gets passed down in families." When she frowned again, I shook my head. "It's a lot to go into right now, and I want to find Bob."

"The manhole's probably been put back into place by now," Murphy said. "With the snake dead, the forensics guys are probably down there collecting the bodies I saw the first time I went down there to find you, and as soon as the scientific community hears about the snake, they'll want to take it apart and study it."

I snorted. "Don't be surprised if it disappears in the middle of the night."

"Why?" Murphy frowned.

"These kinds of things have a way of fading out of the public eye fairly quickly," I said, getting up from the table. "Now, if you'll excuse me, I'm going to work."

Murphy got up from the table and looked at me expectantly without actually managing to meet my gaze. "I think you mean _we're_ going to work."

I arched both eyebrows at her. "I don't see how Bob's a police matter, Lieutenant."

"He's a missing person, and I witnessed his kidnapping," she replied.

"He's a ghost," I corrected her. "Technically, you can't kidnap someone who's already dead."

"All right, so he's a dead person," Murphy said calmly. "To my mind, whoever took his skull could have been involved in his murder."

"He's more than eight hundred years old, Murph," I said gently. "I don't think you're going to find the killer."

She blinked once. And then she got her game face back. "Murder doesn't have a statute of limitations."

"He was also killed before the New World was discovered," I pointed out, a bit bemused by her objections. "Even if you could investigate his murder, I think it'd be a little out of your jurisdiction."

"Harry, would you stop trying to shut me out of this?" she finally snapped. "You're not the only person in the world who knows about Bob and happens to like him. Granted, I don't know everything about him, but he helped me track you down. He was honest with me, and now he's in trouble. I want to help, if I can."

I looked at her face without meeting her eyes. It felt weird to not be the only person who knew who Bob was, and be worried that he was gone. Anyone on the High Council would've known, and would've been worried that he'd been stolen from me, but none of the wizards knew Bob like I did. Hell's bells, most of them would've been figured that Bob had finally discovered a way to get out from under my control and find a weak-minded person to manipulate.

Murphy, on the other hand, had trusted Bob to help her find me before it was too late.

I sighed. "That's just it, Murphy, I don't know if you _can_ help," I told her gently. She started to bristle, but I shook my head. "I'm not trying to say that you can't hack it. I'm just saying that this is my world. The last time we talked about my world, you said that you wouldn't be able to deal with it because your rules didn't apply there."

I could see her hackles lowering, but her lips thinned. "Do they?"

I shook my head. "Not really."

She sighed. "But Bob needs our help."

"He needs _my_ help," I corrected her. "I let him talk me into taking him out of the house so that we could find that snake, and his skull got stolen. I'm the one responsible for his getting taken, not you."

"And what if I wanted to help?" she asked after a minute.

"You don't have to," I said.

"But what if I _wanted_ to, Harry?" she asked. "I can't just quit because this is new territory for me. Bob needs help. And even if he's a ghost, he's someone I can trust."

I frowned at her, curious. "What did you two talk about while I was missing?"

She shrugged. "Some stuff." Her expression hardened into a familiar look of annoyance. "Look, can I help, or not?"

I shook my head. "It's a bad idea for you to get involved."

"And why not?" she demanded. "First, you tell me that I might not want to get involved because it's venturing into your world, and now you're telling me no? What gives?"

"I don't know what we're facing, Murph," I admitted. "If we're facing something big in supernatural circles, you getting involved could mean a lot of major repercussions in your life."

"I'm a big girl, Dresden," she growled. "I can put on my shoes and everything."

"It's nice that you can, but what about Anna? What about your ex?" I asked, point-blank. I hated having to mention them, but it didn't seem like Murphy knew just what she was going to be getting herself into. "They could be targeted because you were involved."

She froze for a moment, her face going a few shades paler. "You bastard."

I gritted my teeth for a moment, and sighed through my nose. "Why do you think I'm not dating?" There were actually a lot of reasons why I wasn't dating. The fact that it would be dangerous to any long-term love interest was valid, but it was also convenient at the time.

"And yet you certainly don't mind kissing me when you're high or your spell needs a little more power," Murphy said with a deadpan expression. "Let's just figure out what you're up against, and then if it starts getting too big to handle, we'll talk again."

"Murph--"

She raised an eyebrow at me. "I don't recall it being a suggestion, Dresden. Now, what's our first step?"

I glared down at her, tempted to say no on general principle. Since she usually didn't take no for an answer nine times out of ten, I took a different approach. "In case you hadn't noticed, Murph, a lot of stuff in my life tends to happen very quickly, and we might not have time to even _have_ that conversation."

"And in case you hadn't noticed, Harry," she shot back, "you're not leaving me out of the loop, because if you even try, I can have you locked up in a mental institution because someone stole your imaginary friend."

It was like having a bucket of ice-cold water dumped on my head. "You wouldn't do that."

"Oh, I wouldn't?" she asked, challenge in her voice. "You want to try me?"

I glared at her again. "Murphy--"

"No, Harry, I'm sick of sitting on the sidelines while craziness is happening, and you're lying to me about all of it," she snapped. "This time, I want in." She folded her arms, and lifted her eyes to meet mine.

They met for a split second, and then I looked away first, feeling like a shit. I _had_ been keeping Murphy out of the loop, but it had been to keep her safe from the stuff that could threaten her or her family. Now that she wanted to risk her life to find Bob, and she knew that she was probably getting in over her head, I couldn't tell her no. Not when I was ready to do the same.

"Fine," I growled.

She nodded firmly, a smile tugging at her lips. "Good. Now, like I said, what's our first step?"

I sighed, pushing a hand through my hair and blowing out a breath. "First, I get into my lab and try to think of what kind of tracking spell I can use to track Bob down."

Murphy looked at me skeptically. "That doesn't sound like much. You don't have anything of his to use."

I nodded. "But I can still try to think of something." I led the way down the hallway that separated my living area from the storefront. I had to admit that I was a little disappointed that Murphy wasn't surprised by the hidden room, but then again, she'd been inside before, according to Bob. She glanced around, taking in the shelves, bookcases, and cabinets that lined the walls, as well as the table in the center, still covered with books, burners, and other stuff that I'd used when Amanda Stahl had come to ask me for help, just before I disappeared.

I pulled out the stool that I usually sit on when I'm thinking and offered it to Murphy. She shook her head, still looking around the room. "Where'd you get all this stuff?"

"A couple years of wandering," I said with a shrug, sitting on the stool and picking up a battered notebook. Plucking a stubby golf pencil from the box I usually keep them in, I tapped the point on the paper a few times.

"And 'a couple' translates into how many?" she asked curiously.

I shrugged again. "I left home when I was eighteen. I was still wandering when my uncle died. You do the math." I thought for a moment, and then scribbled down the usual things that I use in tracking spells. "Okay, so tracking spells usually use something the person owned or used, or a bit of the person, in order to find them."

Murphy looked up from one row of books on a bookshelf -- I think they were my Spider-Man trade paperback collection -- and joined me at the table. "Bob said that before you disappeared, you put together a tracking spell based on someone screaming?"

I nodded. "Since I didn't have anything from the person who was missing, I had to improvise."

"But how were you able to track someone by their scream?" Murphy asked.

"My client had an eidetic memory and perfect pitch." At Murphy's surprised look, I smiled a little. "She's a blind music teacher."

"Huh." Murphy glanced at some of the books that laid open on the table. "This stuff was laying out when I found Bob." She shot me a smile. "You don't clean this place much, do you?"

I snorted. "I've got important work to do here, Murph. A lot of times, I don't have the time or energy to pick up after myself. Now, if you don't mind, I'm trying to concentrate."

Murphy shot me an unamused look, and flipped a few pages in a book about time-released spells that I'd left out by accident. "You know what would be useful?"

"What?" I asked.

"A homing device," she said, looking at me. "Got any of those around?"

"That's what the tracking spell is..." My voice trailed off when a thought occurred to me.

"Is?" Murphy prompted me, but I didn't answer. I just threw open one of my cabinets and rifled around until I found it.

A small, almost translucent crystal skull lay in the palm of my hand. Morgan had given it to me the last time that Bob's skull had been stolen from me. When Ebenezar had shown up afterwards to investigate what had happened, I hadn't given it back to him. I don't know if he was supposed to take it back from me or not, but if he had been, I was glad that he'd conveniently forgotten to ask for it back.

I closed my fingers around the tiny crystal skull, and waited.

Nothing happened.

"Hell's bells," I muttered.

"What?" Murphy asked, looking between me and the skull in my hand and back. "That's your homing device?"

I nodded, sinking down onto my stool. "Well, we know something about whoever took Bob."

"What do we know?" Murphy asked, her eyes narrowing.

"Whoever has Bob is shielding his skull somehow," I said. I picked up a book, slammed it shut, and slammed it down on the table. The book hit with a satisfying thump, but part of me suddenly remembered Bob's lecture when I was thirteen about taking better care of books, and I found myself missing him with a bone-deep ache. I heaved a sigh and set the skull down on the table before scrubbing my face with both hands. "Dammit."

"Shielding his skull?" Murphy asked. For a second, I'd forgotten that I wasn't alone in my lab, and I blinked at her. "I'm guessing someone's using something to block you from being able to find Bob's skull with that thing?" She pointed at the tiny, crystal skull.

I nodded. "Yeah. The last time Bob's skull was stolen, my uncle's doppleganger had been keeping Bob's skull in some kind of warded cage."

"Your uncle's what?" she asked flatly.

I explained what had happened the first time Bob had been skull-napped, starting with Tara and ending with the confrontation at the morgue. Murphy listened quietly until I was finished, and then she shook her head. "I knew there was stuff you weren't telling me about the whole thing, but I didn't think I was missing out on that much."

I shrugged at her. "It's my world, Murph."

She gave the bridge of my nose a level stare before she nodded. "I know."

"So, the homing device idea is out," I said. "Any other ideas?"

Murphy frowned at the skull, and then pointed at it. "Mind if I touch it?"

I frowned at her, wondering what she was going to do. "Don't break it."

She shook her head. "I won't." She glanced at me, and when I nodded, she picked it up. Turning it over in her hands, she frowned at it before she set it back down on the table. "How does it work?"

I blinked. "I don't know."

Murphy frowned. "How can you not know? Didn't you make it?"

I shook my head. "No, I got it from... one of the guys I know in the trade," I said carefully. Morgan had brought down an apartment complex, and had been more than a little crazy the first time Murphy had met him face-to-face. Then again, he'd had a demon in his head, so it wasn't like he could have helped it. "Like I said, Bob's more than eight hundred years old. There have been lots of wizards before me who were his guardians. It's possible one of them made it."

"And no one left an instruction manual behind?" Murphy asked skeptically. "There had to have been a copy made at some point."

I shook my head. "The guy who gave me this thing just said that it would glow when the skull wasn't shielded, and when I touched it, it would show me where Bob was."

"So... it's connected to Bob's magic?" she asked tentatively. I blinked at her. "Oh, come on, Harry, you don't get to be stuck in a skull unless you did something really bad, and I'm sure that even back in the thirteenth century, there were serial killers and really bad criminals. If Bob was dangerous enough to warrant a special kind of punishment, he had to have been a wizard like you."

"Not like me, exactly," I said slowly, trying not to think of how much my own Dark tendencies compared with Bob's necromancy, "but close enough."

Murphy nodded. "All right, so was my guess about it being connected to Bob's magic in the ballpark? Or maybe it's connected to his soul, since that's what's bound to his skull?"

I narrowed my eyes. "Either of those sound like a good explanation, but that doesn't help too much. I don't have any of Bob's magic or part of his soul lying around." I waved a hand at the bins and containers in my lab.

Murphy frowned. "Okay, so is there anything that _could_ have Bob's soul or his magic in it, other than the skull?"

I frowned. "I don't know. Anything that he would've made with his magic would've deteriorated over time."

"But wasn't he alive when he knocked you unconscious?" she pointed out.

I nodded slowly, realization starting to creep in. "Yeah, he was...."

"And if he was alive when you had the showdown at the morgue," she offered.

"Then when he drained my life energy from me, a little bit had to have mixed with his," I finished. "And when he killed Justin, a little of Bob's energy could've mixed with mine." For the first time since I woke up that evening, I actually started to feel like I could _do_ something, instead of wringing my hands and wondering where the hell to start in order to find the love of my life and save him from the jaws of the black-robed, heavily-cowled unknown.

"I can make a tracking spell using someone's magic," I said. "I've done it before." I started getting out the little green pot I use to make my tracking spells, as well as the small spoon.

"Hate to burst your bubble," Murphy said, "but if your theory's right, doesn't that mean you'd have some of Morningway's magic in you too?"

"It would, yeah." I set my jaw. The idea that my uncle's magic had mixed with mine wasn't one I wanted to think about for long. As much as I would've loved to be able to blame my darker urges on my uncle's magic, I'd had them well before Bob's brush with mortality last year.

"Wouldn't that mess up any tracking spell you made, since there's three kinds of magic inside you?" she asked. She stopped suddenly, and shook her head. "And I can't believe I just asked that question."

"We've been talking about a ghost who lives in a skull, and now that we're talking about three different kinds of energy in one person, you're hitting a mental speed-bump?" I asked her curiously.

"Ghosts are something I've heard of before meeting you," Murphy answered, sounding irritated. "Different energies inside a person isn't exactly something they covered at the Academy, or in aikido. Manipulating your own energy, or using an opponent's kinetic energy against them, sure. _Absorbing_ energy from different people into your body, whether it was intentional or not, is something different."

I blinked at her. "Huh."

"I take it that's something you're used to?" she asked. "You don't seem all that bothered about it."

"Most of the time, Murph, I _am_ the mental speed-bump," I told her with a small smile.

"You've got that right," she muttered. "Okay, so how are you going to separate the three energies? It's not like you can cut off one of your limbs and get rid of one of them, right?"

"If I could, I'd only have one arm, and that would make juggling a little difficult," I said. She shot me a surprised look. "Let's just say that my uncle and I didn't see eye-to-eye about a lot of things."

"Ah," Murphy said, nodding. "So, back to my original question. How do you separate three energies from each other?"

I shook my head. "You can't. Remember how I showed up at the apartment building before it came down?"

Her eyes narrowed, and she nodded slowly. "Yeah."

"I used an energy-tracking spell where I used some energy that I'd picked up from some of the crime scenes, since I'd known somebody had left it behind magically, and then I super-saturated the solution," I explained.

Murphy stared at me for a moment before shaking her head. "I don't get it."

I picked up the stubby pencil and sketched some quick circles. Since I didn't care what they looked like, they were a bit lopsided. I labeled two of them ME and DEMON.

"You were dealing with a demon?" she asked, surprised.

I nodded. "I didn't know it was a demon at the time, and it hadn't jumped to me just yet, but it works for now. Now," I wrote out some equations. "This was the aura I was working with. Now, you've seen the crystals I use when I'm tracking something, right?"

"Right, the purple quartz stuff." Murphy nodded.

"It channels energy well, works just like a lodestone when it's attuned to something," I explained. "I take half of a crystal, dip it into the mixture with this aura. Then, I take the other half of the mixture and dip it into this aura with more of my energy mixed in. It'll sense the aura in me already, which wouldn't have made it effective, but with one end pointing at me--"

"--The other end would point at the demon aura." Murphy nodded. "But that's two energies. This is three."

I nodded. "The same principle should apply. I make a mixture with my aura, since it's got the my energy and Bob's mixed together. And then we add this thing." I picked up the crystal skull. "This will get used up in the spell, but considering it's something that means someone else who isn't me can track down Bob whenever they feel like it, I'm not that crushed to lose it."

Murphy frowned, and then started to nod. "Makes sense."

It didn't take that long to get the tracking pot going. I've had years of experience, and I list finding lost items as a specialty in my advertising. After about an hour of bubbling, careful dipping, and one crystal skull now permanently gone from my inventory of magical artifacts, I had a quartz tracking crystal armed and pointing the way.

The only thing stopping me was Murphy standing in the doorway leading out to the hall.

"You need sleep, Harry."

"You're kidding, right?" I asked hopefully.

"No, I'm not," she said, looking a little amused. "You can play with your toys after you've had a few hours of sleep."

"Murph, I just finished this thing." I gestured at the crystal in my hand, still pointing due Bob. "If we don't go now--"

"You'll be able to get some rest, or were you expecting to hit whoever took Bob over the head with your hockey stick?" she said. "Because you're not going to be in top form when you go toe-to-toe with this guy, whoever it is, and if you're not in top form, you're going to get concussed again."

I glared at her. "Murph, you don't get it. Bob was _taken_ from me. I need to get him back."

"And I promise, as soon as we've _both_ had some sleep, I'll drive you there myself, but we're not going to be of any use to him if we're running on fumes." She folded her arms across her chest. "C'mon, Harry. Don't make me use my handcuffs."

I scowled. "You wouldn't."

"We've already had this conversation, Harry, and if I remember correctly, I won last time." She smiled cheerfully up at me. "Just bow down to the inevitable. It'll hurt less."

My cunning plan to outlast her was thwarted when I couldn't stop a jaw-cracking yawn. "I've done it before," I said mulishly.

"Yeah, and you've usually gotten into worse trouble because of it," she replied. She reached out and took my arm gently with one of her hands and guided me out of the lab. She closed it behind her with some effort, and then she half-guided me, half-pushed me through my combination living room-kitchen, and then up the stairs to the loft. Still holding onto the string of the tracking crystal, I looked at her again without meeting her eyes.

"Murph," I said quietly, "I don't want to wait."

She tugged on my arm until I turned and sat down on the bed. She sat down next to me, her hand still holding my arm above the wrist. "I know."

"He's the only friend I have from when I was younger," I murmured.

"I kind of gathered," she murmured back.

"I need him to be safe," I whispered, echoing the words I'd thought just before I'd blacked out. I had an uncomfortable feeling of deja vu, but at that moment, I couldn't remember why.

"And he will be," she promised. "We'll make sure of it. But we need to make sure we can take care of ourselves before we can take care of him."

I sighed. "Thanks, Murph."

"You're welcome." I felt her lips touch my temple. "You want me to take the crystal?"

I shook my head. "It can't get contaminated. I'll hold onto it."

I saw her frown. "Won't that contaminate it?"

I shook my head again. "It's just different concentrations of my energy. It'll be fine."

"Okay. You going to sleep now?"

I nodded, and for a moment, I could see the first light of dawn creeping across the walls of my room. "Yeah." To show her I meant it, I nudged my shoes off as best I could, flopped back onto my bed, and held the crystal close to me.

She nodded once. "A few hours, Harry. Promise." With that, she headed down the stairs.

I waited until I heard her milling around downstairs. All I had to do was wait until she fell asleep, and then I could make my escape. I could try casting a spell to make sure the stairs didn't creak, or the floorboards, and then I'd be able to leave Murphy there, take her car, and find Bob. Leaving her behind would be underhanded, but I was worried about her. Something was nagging at me that whoever, or whatever, we were going up against could be extremely dangerous, and not just because they had a habit of smacking my head against a wall.

I listened for the sound of Murphy's footsteps, and promptly fell asleep.

***

When I opened my eyes, I found myself inside my own mind. It hadn't changed much since the last time I was there. It still had the circle of light, with someone prowling just outside the edge of it. Off in the distance, I could see the hole that a demon had dug into my head weeks before. It wasn't closed entirely, but it was a bit more filled in than before.

I zeroed in on the figure just outside of the circle, and then suddenly, my subconscious closed the distance between us and looked me in the eye. He looked as well groomed and evil-me as ever, his goatee trimmed, his hair brushed. He was wearing all black, of course, with a black leather duster that billowed dramatically behind him. "We need him safe."

He was talking about Bob, and for once, I didn't bother arguing with him. "I know."

"No, I don't think you do," he snapped. "You already figured out that we've got a bit of Bob's energy mixed with ours."

"And a bit of Justin's too," I added. "And?"

"And if she finds that out, we could be in serious trouble," he half-growled at me. Suddenly, he grabbed the front of my shirt and jerked me forward until we were almost nose to nose. "You don't have time to sleep."

"She?" I frowned. "She who?"

He glared at me. "The she who took Bob, you idiot. The she who could really care less about whether or not we're alive at the end of the day."

"I still don't know who you're talking about, and if you dragged me here just to tell me this, mind if I say it's been a waste of time?"

He gritted his teeth. "You've got to be kidding. You know that Mai likes wearing robes and dresses--"

"That was Mai?" I spluttered, staring at my double incredulously. The only thing that stopped me from starting to gibber was that I was too shocked to do more than just stand there looking like an idiot.

Subconscious Harry sighed heavily, letting me go to pinch the bridge of his nose. "Yes. It was Mai. You already knew whoever took Bob wasn't human."

"But how the hell did she know I was there?" I demanded.

My double rolled his eyes. "I don't know. We're the same person, remember?"

"Maybe she followed us?" I guessed.

He shook his head. "You would've heard the footsteps." He paused before adding, "That, or Bob would've heard her."

"So, that would mean she was already down there," I said, frowning. "Could she have been down there to get rid of the snake, like we were?"

"Why don't you use your tracking crystal and go ask her?" my subconscious asked. "I'm sure she'd love to tell you all about her plan to bring sunlight and sweetness to the world, one ball of dragon's breath at a time."

I glared at him. "Was there anything else you needed to tell me, or can I wake up now?"

Evil Harry shook his head. "Listen to me. That sword Mai was carrying is important. Remember how familiar it felt? It could mean one of two things."

"Either it was something that Justin made before he died, and Mai just ended up with it somehow," I offered.

"Or it's something with Bob's magic in it," my double finished. "Bob would've been a force to be reckoned with when he was alive. If he made that--"

"--And if he made it during his necromancer days, I could be in trouble." I stopped for a second. "But why would he enchant a sword when he was a necromancer? He wanted to bring Winifred back."

"And how do you get more victims to come with you so that you can drain them dry?" my double asked dryly.

"Oh." Trying to imagine Bob with a sword in hand was surprisingly harder than I thought it would be. I wasn't sure just how I imagined Bob finding people to use to bring Winifred back to life, but my own ideas had leaned more toward what had happened when Bob had brought my uncle back to life. He'd use a small spell to knock them out, and then drag them over to where he'd been keeping Winifred's body, or something similar.

Subconscious Me nodded. "It's something to keep in mind."

"But why would Mai want to take Bob?" I asked. "She wasn't down there, lying in wait for us. At least, I don't think so."

"Crime of opportunity," my double pointed out. "She could've used Council channels in order to do it, but you were down in the sewers, you had Bob out of your house, and you couldn't make a positive ID on Mai."

"Then how do you know it was her?" I asked, narrowing my eyes at my subconscious.

He sighed. "I'm your instinct, remember? I clued you in that she didn't have human reflexes. It's her, trust me. And if you're going to go toe-to-toe with her, you'd better bring Murphy along."

"Are you insane?" I demanded. "This is Mai we're talking about, right?"

He nodded, looking like he was a few steps away from grabbing my neck with both hands and throttling me. "If you don't run to the Council, Mai's going to know something's up. If she thinks you know she stole Bob, she's going to get ready to take you on. Murphy would be the wild card that might just give you a leg up on Mai."

I frowned. "Murph's also likely to get the cops involved."

"Were you listening to her? She knows what she's getting into. She's a big girl, and if I keep talking, we're going to rehash the coach-versus-protector conversation, and right now, you don't have time. Wake up, get Murphy to take us to Burger King, and let's go beat up a dragon to get our boyfriend back."

I blushed. "Bob's not our boyfriend."

"He's not?" he asked innocently.

The last thing I saw before I woke up was my subconscious smirking at me.

The jerk.

I felt a little better after having slept, and when I made sure that the tracking crystal was still attuned, I headed downstairs to see Murphy leaning against the backdoor, her arms folded across her chest. I stopped and blinked at her.

"You didn't think you were going to be leaving without me, were you?" she asked, smiling a little.

I blinked at her again, surprised by how closely her words mirrored the ones that Bob had said to me before we'd set out for the sewers and Undertown the day before. "Um, no."

She blinked back at me, and then shot me a grin. "Good. Where's the crystal say to go?" She glanced at it curiously.

"Burger King first," I declared. "But I've got a phone call to make first."

Murphy raised an eyebrow at me. "Who're you calling?"

"A friend," I said, picking up the phone in the kitchen and dialing.

A few rings later, Ebenezar McCoy answered. "Hello?"

"Hi, Ebenezar," I said. "Ancient Mai stole Bob."

There was a startled pause, and Murphy shot me a curious look. I shook my head at her as Ebenezar said, "What?"

"Mai stole Bob from me. I was out working a case when she showed up, knocked me out, and took Bob," I explained. "I don't have time to run to the Council to complain about it, because this is Ancient Mai, and I'd rather not wait around to see why she stole him."

Ebenezar grunted into the phone. "I'll let 'em know what's going on. What're you going to do in the meantime?"

"Get a Whopper, and get my friend back," I answered. "Preferably in that order. How long will it take for you to get in touch with the Council?"

"Not long," Ebenezar replied. "I know a few people on the Senior Council. Be careful, Hoss. Mai's a nasty customer on a good day."

I glanced at Murphy and smiled a little to myself. "It's okay, sir. Let's just say I have an ace in the hole."

I heard a heavy sigh, and then, "All right. Hang up, Hoss."

I did, and Murphy stared at me.

I blinked. "What?"

"There's someone you call 'sir'?" she asked, looking a bit startled.

"Yeah." I shrugged before shooting her a hopeful look. "Burger King?"

"You want food before we go find Bob?"

"You're objecting?" I asked curiously. "We can eat on the way there, unless your car's too sacred for food."

Murphy snorted. "You never suggest stopping for food," she remarked. With that, we got in her unmarked, hit the nearest drive-thru, and headed out to face a dragon.

It took an hour of city traffic before we were headed to the outskirts of town, toward the more expensive houses that almost resembled castles from a distance. I realized about a few miles out from Chicago proper that we were close to my uncle's house, but when the crystal pointed firmly away from the road leading up to the estate, aiming steadily toward the homes around Lake Michigan, I kept a sigh of relief to myself.

It took another half an hour to find a sprawling estate protected from the road by a row of tall, old trees, and about a mile from the entrance to the grounds to the house itself. If I had thought that Justin's place was huge when I was a kid, I would've been amazed to see a house of this magnitude existing in the United States. Bay windows overlooked most of the grounds, with brick and buttresses and lots of other architectural terms I didn't know creating something that looked almost organic.

Considering how much power I was sure Mai had to be packing, I wouldn't have been surprised if she'd grown the freaking place from scratch.

Murphy pulled into the expansive driveway, the sedan almost dwarfed by its surroundings. It looked a hell of a lot shabbier than anything else that was there. And that's when I noticed there weren't any cars.

Maybe Mai was out for the day.

Yeah, and maybe some of her cousins would suddenly fly out of my butt.

Murphy and I got out of her car, and looked around. She circled around to join me, and we both looked at the crystal, which had started a lazy circuit on the string I'd tied it with.

"What's that mean?" she asked.

"I didn't design these things with a Z axis," I grumbled. "So, it's possible that either Bob is above us or below us."

Murphy looked pointedly at the house, and then at the crystal. "Wonderful." She turned, and headed for what we could only guess was the front door.

"Murph!" I yelped. "What are you doing?"

"What's it look like I'm doing?" she asked. "I'm going to the front door."

"Are you crazy?" I protested, my heart threatening to leap out of my chest. "We should be trying to find an open window or something, not knocking and asking if Mai's found Jesus."

Murphy gave me an unamused look. "Is Mai going to be expecting you to come in through her front door?"

That stopped me. "Um, no."

"Then the front door it is," she said firmly, turning back around and mounting the steps to a porch that probably had its own zip code. "I swear, Harry, you're never going to make it as a PI if you don't try to anticipate their next move."

"You know me, Murph," I said cheerfully, "We wizards never plan ahead or anything."

"Could've fooled me," she snorted, and then she pulled her gun.

"Um, Murph? What're you doing?" I asked, looking from her to her gun and back.

"What's it look like I'm doing?" she asked evenly. "Whoever this is, she's a thief and possibly a murderer."

"Y'know, we could find an open window, not make a mess of things," I suggested helpfully.

Murphy frowned at me. "All right, what's making you twitch now?"

"I'm not twitching," I objected.

"Yes, you are." Her eyes narrowed. "You weren't exactly all that specific about who 'she' is, Harry. What am I walking into?"

"You wouldn't believe me if I told you," I said seriously.

She glared at me. "Harry," she growled.

"She's a dragon," I said.

She paused before nodding. "You're right. I don't believe you." That was when she turned, picked up one foot, and slammed it against the very nice wooden door. There was a very loud cracking, crunching sound, and then the door swung inwards on silent hinges. Murphy walked right in as if she owned the place, and when I didn't immediately follow, she turned around and raised an eyebrow at me.

I eyed the threshold before gritting my teeth and stepping over it. As I suspected, Mai hadn't done anything to weaken her threshold, like say for instance, run an occult consulting agency out of the front half of the building. When I put my foot down inside the house, I could feel my magic being pulled out of me, like using a strainer to drain cooked pasta, and I resisted the urge to look behind me to see if it was just hovering on the doorstep. I got my other foot in and inhaled slowly.

"Harry," Murphy said, frowning, "are you okay?"

"Not really, no," I admitted. "The sooner we get Bob's skull, the sooner we can get out of here."

She kept frowning, but after I nodded, she turned away from me to look at the foyer we'd stepped into. It was big, looked like it cost more than I'd ever hope to see in about a hundred years, and it even smelled nice. As I followed Murphy inside, the wards hit me about six inches later, hard enough to feel like a brick wall. Guess Mai hadn't skimped on the personal defenses.

"Harry?"

I hadn't realized I'd closed my eyes until I opened them and looked at Murphy, who'd made it halfway down a hall with framed photographs and hideously expensive walls before she'd turned to look at me. "Hang on a sec, Murph."

I closed my eyes again and concentrated, opening my wizard's Sight. It's hard to describe what you see with your Third Eye. Not only do you see things more clearly, see what they really are, but all of your senses are opened. It's as though a thick veil is lifted away, and you see the world around you, unfiltered. Magic is just as tangible and real to the your senses when you use the Sight too. Sometimes the things you see with the Third Sight are very beautiful, sometimes they're not. And the thing about the Third Sight is that you'll never be able to forget it. You can try to ignore it, but when you think about what happened, what you saw with your Sight, it comes rushing back as if you'd just seen it a few moments ago. Wizards learn to how to close their Third Eye very quickly, and they keep it closed unless there's an emergency.

I opened my eyes carefully, but instead of seeing the ornate walls, I could see solid rock that looked like it had been ripped into shape. Blues of different shades swirled around my eyes, the wards Mai had put into place resembling shields of different sizes and makes. The walls around Murphy and I smelled of something primal and ancient, the dark scent of old caverns and a time when Man knew that they weren't at the top of the food chain. I could hear wisps of things, barely large enough to call themselves spirits, hovering around the house, attached to the walls, the floor, the ceiling and feeding off of the energies. Unlike Victor Sells' lake house, these spirits weren't malevolent things feeding off of death and evil. They were just spirits, leeching off the excess magic that lingered on the walls.

This wasn't just some house I was looking at. This was Mai's demesne, her den, her little slice of sanctuary in Illinois.

Stars and stones, this was just getting better and better.

Murphy stood, looking like an avenging angel amidst the rock, her physical beauty almost breathtaking. The .44 in her hand looked like a sword now, and she still looked at me impatiently.

I cleared my throat, and then closed my eyes again. When I opened them, it was back to the freaking expensive walls and floors, and Murphy looked less angelic.

"Are you finished?" Murphy asked.

I took a deep breath and nodded. "Yeah."

"Any ideas on where Bob might be?" she asked. "What's the crystal..." Her voice trailed off, and I looked down at the crystal.

It had stopped in mid-swing. I frowned at it, and when I headed in the direction it indicated, it suddenly did a 270, and aimed very determinedly at a wall. A second later, it started spinning around until it was a blur of purple. Suddenly, the string snapped, and the crystal shattered when it smacked into the very nice-looking tile.

"Shit," I muttered.

"That happen to you a lot?" Murphy asked, trying to cover how worried she looked by sounding curious. It didn't help too much.

"Not really," I admitted. "Okay, let's try to go down as much as possible."

"Down?" she asked skeptically.

I nodded. "You know how Smaug kept his lair underground?"

Murphy's eyes narrowed at me. "Did you just mention Tolkien while we're in a perp's house?"

"Yes, I did," I said as patiently as possible. "Now, trust me. We want to go down. If you can find any doors that lead to a basement level of some kind, we'll have a good place to start."

"And if this woman and Bob aren't down there?" Murphy asked.

"Then we go up." I said. At her unimpressed look, I shrugged. "It's either that, or we do a room by room search of the house, and I forgot to pack my signal flares."

Murphy snorted. "Fine, let's go."

It took about twenty minutes before we finally lucked out. As we made our way down, with Murphy in front since she had the gun, I could dimly hear voices. Murphy stopped when she heard them, and she glanced up at me. I nodded, and then she stepped off the last stair, heading down the hallway, toward an open door, light spilling on the floor from where it had been left open.

"So we're agreed?" I heard Mai purr, and part of me wanted to pull a Murphy and then throw her across the room.

I saw Murphy glance at me, and I nodded, mouthing, "That's her."

Murphy nodded, her face set in concentration as she braced her feet and readjusted her grip on the gun.

"We are," Bob said, and I had to fight not to heave a relieved sigh. I hadn't realized just how much I'd missed Bob's voice until I heard him practically sneer at Ancient Mai.

"Excellent," Mai purred again, and then I heard the loud hum that I'd first heard back in the sewers connected to Undertown. I gasped.

"The sword," I whispered to Murphy.

"You don't know how long I've waited to do this, warlock," Mai sneered.

Murphy nodded sharply. And then she raised her foot and kicked the door in.

The door slammed open with surprising speed, revealing a room lit by hundreds of tiny candles, the lights reflected off of coin-sized mirrors that hung from the wall I could see in an asymmetric pattern. Mai was dressed in a dark yellow and black dress, her features cold and beautiful. She was holding the sword she'd been using in the sewers, but now it was starting to shake in her hand. She looked down at the blade, ignoring me, and just as I watched, the shining silver metal started to crack down the center.

Mai's head jerked up to Bob, who was actually smiling at her. "What the hell did you do?"

Bob's smile didn't waver, despite the fact that he had a very pissed off dragon staring at him. "It was never meant to be used against its maker, Ancient Mai. If you still wish to continue with the bargain, you should do it quickly."

I rubbernecked between the two of them, and then as Mai let out a low growl, I couldn't stop myself from watching the sword that she lifted with both hands. More cracks spiderwebbed across its surface, and as it got closer and closer to Bob, large shards broke off, bouncing off the floor in a shower of metal, each piece sounding like a miniature church bell as it rang against the floor.

Then the sword, looking like a shadow of its former self with a long sliver of metal still attached to the hilt, slid into Bob's chest cleanly, right through his nonexistent ribs, and slamming home into his heart.

The remnants of the sword suddenly glowed like white fire, forcing me to cover my eyes. I heard Murphy grunt, and Mai let out a piercing shriek of pain before the light winked out. I opened my eyes just in time to see Bob, his eyes wide and staring, sink to his knees, and then collapse on the floor with a thump.

I stared at Bob, and then up at Mai, who seemed to have recovered from the blinding white flash. She screamed, sounding all too inhuman in her fury, and fell on Bob.

Or, at least she tried to. I took my hockey stick, and slammed the blade into her face just before she reached him.

She recoiled in shock, but before she could turn on me, Murphy shouted, "Freeze!"

Mai stopped for a moment, allowing me to see that not only had her mask slipped, Murphy was now getting her first look at a real, live dragon. One whose face had apparently been flash-fried by the sudden burst of light seconds before.

Mai's jaws opened, and she hissed angrily before her reason returned, and she sank back into the shadows. I knelt down next to Bob and reached out a hand to touch him.

His jacket felt like it was made out of something expensive.

"Stars and sky," I breathed, surging forward to touch his face, check his pulse. It was fast as hell, but I couldn't stop myself from touching him, cupping warm skin with my hands. "Bob?" I said, not really believing what my hands were telling me. I licked my lips and tried again. "Bob?"

Blue-green eyes fluttered open, and our eyes met for a split second before we both averted our gazes at the same time. I couldn't stop a smile, and I leaned down to lightly rest my forehead against his. "Bob..." I whispered.

"Hello, Harry," Bob rasped, and then he cleared his throat. "As much as I would like to reacquaint myself with certain aspects of living, this floor is hurting my back. Would you be so kind as to help me up?"

I took the hand he held toward me and pulled him up, grunting at the effort. Bob was a bit heavier than I'd expected.

When Bob looked around, he blinked when he saw Murphy, who'd been keeping her gun trained on Ancient Mai. "Lieutenant Murphy?" he asked, sounding as surprised as he looked.

"Hi, Bob," Murphy said in her clipped, I'm-busy-keeping-a-gun-aimed-on-a-dragon voice.

Bob glanced at me curiously. "I don't suppose you brought anyone else along with you?"

I glanced at the shadows where Mai was still putting herself back together, or so I guessed. "We might have."

"You didn't," Mai said from behind me. I may have jumped about a foot, but no matter what Bob says, I didn't squeal like a little girl.

The three of us turned to face her, and she was back to her normal self. Or as normal as she usually appeared, in any case. "Hi, Ancient Mai," I said, grinning at her. "How's it going? That dress looks nice on you."

Mai's eyes narrowed, and for a second, they flashed red. "You're already intruding on my domain, Dresden. Be lucky I'm letting you live long enough to explain why you are here."

"Hold it right there, lady," Murphy said in a low, dangerous tone of her own. Her gun was aimed at Ancient Mai's chest. "I've already got you on theft and attempted murder."

Mai's eyes flashed again as she took in Murphy. "A mortal police officer, Dresden? You have sunk low, haven't you?"

Murphy narrowed her eyes at Ancient Mai. "I've seen you at Harry's place."

"And as soon as I'm finished with you, you'll swear you never grew past the age of ten," Mai sneered.

"I wouldn't do that, Madam," Bob said mildly. I glanced at him curiously. "It wouldn't do to break one of the laws of magic in front of two witnesses."

Mai's eyes narrowed. "Who said anything about witnesses, warlock?"

I gritted my teeth and stepped in front of Bob. "If you think you're going to touch any of us, you'd better think again," I snarled.

"Please, Harry," Bob said, and then I felt his hand rest on my shoulder, squeezing it once. I got distracted by how strong it felt, but I told myself to focus on the dragon that wanted to kill us, not on the hand that was resting on my shoulder. "Let's not be hasty. I'm sure that Mai would be more than willing to be hospitable." His emphasis on the last word threw me for a second, but Mai's expression went from disdainful to really annoyed.

As I watched, she set her teeth, and turned to go up the flight of stairs Murphy and I had come down on. "To my sitting room, then," she said through gritted teeth.

Bob nodded regally. "Thank you, madam."

Murphy and I glanced at each other before Murphy followed her up the stairs. I pulled back, went inside the room, and found Bob's skull. Scooping it up, I found the drawstring bag laying on a nearby table. Depositing the skull back in the bag, I slipped the drawstring over my shoulder and jogged to catch up with the others.

Mai's sitting room was about as comfortable as being inside a museum. The couch where I sat in the middle, with Bob on my right side and Murphy on my left felt like it had been starched within an inch of its life. Everything in the room was immaculate, and I had to resist the urge to grind my dirty shoes into the carpet, just to be rude.

Mai sat across from us in a chair that looked more like a throne. "Shall I offer you refreshment?" she asked, her tone ice cold.

Bob smiled, showing a flash of crooked teeth. "I wouldn't dream of imposing, madam. All I wish is for Harry, Lieutenant Murphy, and myself to be allowed on our way, unharmed and unmolested for the entirety of the trip. In return, I will honor our agreement as originally stated."

"Bob--" I started, frowning at Mai.

"Not now, Harry," Bob said, looking over and deliberately taking my hand in his, his skin surprisingly warm against mine. "I'll explain later. Are we agreed, madam?"

Mai's eyes narrowed, and then she looked at me. "He doesn't know, does he?"

This time, Bob's expression went glacial, and he arched one grey eyebrow. "That is no business of yours," he murmured, his voice low and dangerous. It almost felt like a freaking hand pressing against my crotch. I quickly thought about what I'd stepped in while we were in the sewers, cleaning out Mister's litter box, anything unappealing.

"Are we agreed?" Bob asked again, his eyes on Mai.

"Give me your word that you'll honor your end of the bargain, warlock," Mai ordered.

Bob's eyes narrowed. "I gave it before."

"That was before the blade you said was safe struck me," Mai hissed. "Give me your word."

"I merely said that the blade you were holding could be dangerous if improperly used," Bob corrected her mildly, his lips pursing.

No, Harry. Mister's litter box.

Mai sneered. "You will give me your word, warlock, or you will be removed from Dresden's guardianship."

I finally had enough. "All right, Mai," I snapped, "for one thing, Bob's actually alive now, so I'm not his guardian anymore. For another, we don't have to do anything you say."

"You do if you want to keep Hrothbert of Bainbridge alive," Mai said, dismissing me to look back at Bob. "Give me your word."

He narrowed his eyes at her, and then after a long moment, he nodded once. "You have it."

She nodded sharply, and stood. "Our business is concluded. Allow me to show you out."

I blinked, but Bob and Murphy both stood up, so I joined them. Mai took us straight to the front door, and in five minutes, we were standing on her porch again.

"What the hell just happened?" I demanded, watching Bob gingerly walk down the stairs.

"I just got Ancient Mai to let me go willingly," he said, smiling up at me.

"Harry means what the hell just happened in general," Murphy said. "We showed up just in time to hear her talk about how long she's wanted to run you through with a sword."

Bob blinked. "I see. Well, I'll have to explain when we return to the house." He looked around curiously. "Where's your Jeep?"

"Left it where I parked before we went into Undertown," I said. "We're taking Murphy's car." I pointed at the car in question, and then Bob stared at it.

"Is it going to last the trip home?" he asked Murphy. "If you think Harry by himself is anathema to machinery, you'll find the two of us together are doubly so."

Murphy shrugged. "It made it here okay."

Bob nodded, looking hesitant, but he climbed into the passenger-side of the backseat. I helped him figure out the buckle, and after we got ourselves situated, Murphy started the car and we headed home.

After an uneventful drive back into Chicago where I watched the scenery, petted Bob's skull where it sat in my lap, and tried to look at Bob's reflection in the side windows, Murphy pulled up at my place, and the three of us headed inside. Bob paused for a moment before stepping across the threshold and shooting me a startled look.

"Harry, what happened to the wards?" he asked sharply.

"What do you mean, what happened to them?" I asked defensively. "They're right there."

Bob frowned, and after an intense look of concentration, he blinked. "Those are the wards?"

I scowled at him and folded my arms over my chest. "Yes. They are. Yeah, I know they're crappy. No, I haven't been able to strengthen them. Between the demon that got in here and all of the cops swarming the place, they've gotten weak."

"They're absolutely nonexistent," Bob hissed. "Had I known--" He stopped himself with visible effort, and closed his eyes to boot. After a minute, he opened them again, and turned to Murphy. "While I'm not the master of the household, I'm sure Harry would offer you some refreshment?" He glanced at me inquiringly.

I blinked. "Um, sure."

Murphy raised an eyebrow at this. "I'm fine, Bob. Now, you said you were going to explain what just happened at that woman's house?"

Bob nodded. "The woman is Ancient Mai. She's a wizard, like Harry and myself."

"I kind of gathered that," Murphy said dryly. "How about you start from the top? What happened after your skull was snatched? I tried to follow you, but the snake got between me and the tunnel Mai went down."

Bob licked his lips. I sat down on the corner of my desk, trying to think of Mister's litter box while also trying not to look Bob up and down.

"Mai took me to her home, and at first, she kept me inside my own skull," Bob began. I winced at that. I had learned the hard way that putting Bob in his skull and keeping him trapped there without the freedom to come out on his own was torture for him. He didn't have a physical body at the time, but being locked in his skull reminded him of the fact that he wasn't alive anymore, and that his soul could have been bent and twisted into something no living person could duplicate. "She put a rather elaborate warding circle around my skull, but other than that, she left me be."

"And then?" Murphy prompted.

"She summoned me, and showed me the Wyrmgastbona."

"Wyrmgast-what?" I asked.

Bob sighed patiently. "Wyrmgastbona, Harry. It is--" He stopped himself, and then said, "--was the name of the blade she was wielding."

Murphy frowned and shook her head. "What's so important about it?"

"It had a rather small reputation as a dragon-slayer," Bob replied, but the way he spoke made me think he knew more than he was telling us. "I aided in its construction before my... enforced retirement." He smiled apologetically at Murphy. "So, it resonated with some of my magic. She offered me a deal. I would be returned to mortality, and in exchange, I would aid in the construction of a similar weapon for her personal use."

"What's the catch?" Murphy asked.

Bob's smile was more like a smirk. "I think I've overcome it, actually. While your arrival was unexpected, it was quite fortuitous. Otherwise, Mai would have been free to lock me in a dungeon somewhere until I did the work she requested, and then she would have been able to keep me in her pocket, if you will. Though..." his voice trailed off, and he looked thoughtful. "Mai isn't foolish enough to think in the short term." He glanced at me. "She'll have something else planned."

"If she tries anything, call me," Murphy said. "I could have her tied up in police tape for a while. She gave Harry a concussion when she took your skull. I could say that was attempted murder, especially since she knew that leaving him in that room with the snake would've contributed to his death."

Bob shook his head. "You've involved yourself enough on my account, milady. I thank you for the offer, but I must respectfully decline. The fewer people Mai can target, the better. Does that explanation suffice?"

Murphy narrowed her eyes. "Not by a long shot, but--" She stopped, and took her phone out of her pocket. She frowned at it when the ringer started to warp like a stretched cassette tape. "Damn it. Mind if I use your phone?"

"Go ahead," I said, reaching over and picking it up before offering it to her. She took the phone off the jack and started spinning the rotary dial.

I glanced at Bob just in time to see him close his eyes and roll his shoulders backwards, taking his time with the movement. If he'd been shirtless, I was sure I would've been able to see the muscles bunch and flex. Instead, I took a deep breath, looked away, and debated checking to make sure Mister's litter box was clean.

Murphy hung up the phone a minute later. "It was the station. They need me back." She tucked her cell phone back in her pocket, and then looked a question at me. "Want me to give you a lift back to your Jeep?"

I should've said yes, because I'd need it if I was going to do any running around tomorrow, and I didn't have enough cash on me to take a cab over there to pick up my car.

But I saw Bob, and I shook my head. "No, thanks. I'll pick it up tomorrow."

Murphy shot me a puzzled frown, but when she looked at Bob, realization dawned. What kind of realization it was, I wasn't sure, but I wasn't about to look a gift horse in the mouth. "Later, Harry," Murphy said.

I nodded. "Drive safe, Murph."

Murphy left, closing the door gently behind her.

I looked at Bob. He looked back.

"There's got to be more to the story than that," I said.

He nodded. "There is."

"And?" I asked, my voice gentler than I expected it to be.

"And," Bob answered slowly, "For the first time in nearly nine hundred years, I'm dreadfully tired."

Guilt grabbed me by the scruff of the neck and gave me a good, hard shake. "Oh," I said, a bit embarrassed I hadn't realized it sooner. "Well, you know where my bed is."

He frowned. "Where are you going to sleep?"

"Living room couch," I said with a shrug. "I've slept on it before."

Bob gave me a tired version of his fondly exasperated look. "Harry, you don't have to give up your bed for me."

"I want to," I said firmly. "And I'm not taking no for an answer. Besides," I said with a smile, "you've never felt flannel before, have you? It'll be a good experience."

Bob looked like he really wanted to argue, but he looked wiped out, and his eyelids were sliding to half-mast, making him adorable in a tired kitten kind of way.

"C'mon, Bob," I said. And for the first time in my life, I guided Bob up the stairs to my loft bedroom, made him sit down on the bed, helped him take off his socks and shoes. I watched him wrestle out of his jacket, shirt, waistcoat and ascot half-heartedly, a lump in my throat. He looked like he needed someone to take care of him, especially when he mashed his cheek against my pillow, blinked, and snuggled into it, a smile spreading across his lips.

I resisted the urge to stare at the lines and muscles in his back, reminding me of drawings from Grey's Anatomy. Instead, I grabbed my bunched-up sheets, carefully undid them, and snapped them out, letting them fall gently on top of Bob's sleeping form. When they'd settled, revealing the vague outline of Bob's long-limbed frame, I couldn't resist reaching out and gently touching Bob's hair. When I was fifteen, I'd wondered what it would feel like to touch it, or run my fingers through it.

His hair was very soft, reminding me of one time when someone I met in Ottawa had been raising three ducklings. They'd been tiny, and the smallest one fit in the palm of my hand, but what had stuck in my mind was how soft their down feathers had felt.

"Sleep well," I murmured.

Bob made some kind of sleepy noise, and I knew that I should've gone downstairs and puttered around, figured out what I had to make for dinner, since we'd gotten back around sunset. But I couldn't.

Bob was sacked out on my bed, and he was alive. Before I passed out this morning, I'd been worried about someone using him to do something, like try to take over the High Council, or maybe even come after me. I'd been worried that Bob would've come out of his skull and return to the kind of slavery he'd hated, the servant of yet another master who didn't give a damn about him.

But instead, I had watched Ancient Mai, of all people, use some weird, humming sword to bring Bob back to life. Was that how it had been when my uncle's copy had brought him back to life? He'd been stolen, and then had an arrow stabbed into his chest? Bob had been sketchy with the details about his first return to mortality, but I'd put together some clues on my own.

Emotions tumbled through me. Shock was taking center stage, but it was the kind of numb shock that you feel when you see someone die right in front of you, and you have no way of stopping it. Just on its heels was wild joy because Bob was alive. I wasn't sure how it'd happened, but I wasn't about to question it. Bob was alive, and he was okay, and he wasn't in danger of using his life force in order to kill someone who was going to kill me. We were both safe, and he was sleeping, and things were all right.

Fear was tapping on joy's shoulder, reminding me of the fact that Ancient Mai didn't do things out of the goodness of her heart. There was a reason she'd brought Bob back, and from that strange conversation in Mai's sitting room, I could guess it was for something extremely dangerous. Bob had apparently been involved in enchanting swords back in the day, and that's what Mai wanted him for, but I was sure there had been things he wasn't telling me and Murphy. Curiosity was trying to shove fear out of the way, though -- what was Bob going to do for Mai? He'd mentioned that Mai probably wanted to keep him exclusively in her pocket somehow. How would that have worked? If I'd gone to the High Council and protested the theft of Bob's skull, they would've either remembered the crystal tracking skull that I'd destroyed while making the tracking spell to find Bob, or they would've seen it as gross negligence, and as soon as the skull was recovered, they would've given Bob over to a more "deserving" master, no matter how much of an asshole they were.

I don't know when I'd sat down on the edge of the bed, but I knew I had to get up. As nice and warm as my bed was, it was going to be Bob's bed until we figured out something. I tried to push away the thought that the arrangement might be temporary, and that Bob might end up leaving after he got his feet under him, but I couldn't stop thinking about it. I still wasn't sure if it had really been Bob telling me that he would've wanted to get away from it all and be able to live as a hermit, or if that had been the demon talking, but it made sense. A guy who'd been bound to his skull for the past eight or nine hundred years would want to be able to make his own decisions about how he lived his life. He'd lived as a hermit before, when he had finished his training. He might want to live alone again, not have to deal with people.

And like I'd thought about when he'd first mentioned the idea, right in the middle of dealing with the head-hopping demon, living with the most recent guardian of his skull might just remind him of a time when he wasn't able to make decisions about how he wanted to live his life that were outside the limits of his curse.

I shook my head and got up. Bob needed to sleep, and I needed to think about what to eat. I wasn't sure how long Bob was going to be asleep, but it wouldn't hurt to make a little extra.

After finding some spaghetti in the cabinet, I started making dinner for two, and tried not to think about a future without Bob in it.


End file.
